Allstate Invokes Constitutional Defenses in Chicago TCPA Class Action
Allstate denies it engages in widespread unsolicited telemarketing to promote the sale of its insurance products, said its answer Monday (docket 1:23-cv-04385) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago to the second amended Telephone Consumer Protection Act class…
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action filed Oct. 23 by Joseph Bond of Georgia and Tonia Jewell-Vines of Maryland. The plaintiffs allege Allstate hires insurance agents across the country to conduct telemarketing on its behalf, and authorizes those insurance agents to place telemarketing calls, including prerecorded calls and calls to numbers listed on the national do not call list. But Allstate responds that those thousands of Allstate agents are independent contractors, and Allstate can’t respond on behalf of all of them, said its answer. The plaintiffs’ claims “are barred in whole or in part because, as applied to this case, the TCPA is unconstitutionally vague,” and their application to Allstate would violate the due process provisions of the Fifth and 14th Amendments, it said. The TCPA's statutory-damages provisions also violate the “safeguards guaranteed” by the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and 14th Amendments “because they constitute excessive fines and are grossly disproportionate to any actual harm that may be suffered” by the plaintiffs, it said.